Saturday, 9 July 2016

I Saw a Ghost Outside Aldi

Last week I was glad
to hear some good news: two newly-commissioned hovercraft have just entered
service. Yes, 50 years after I, an awestruck, penniless student without the
price of a ticket, watched the inaugural passenger flight lift magically from
the pebbles of Southsea beach and skim away over the sea to the Isle of Wight, hovercraft
are (still) go! In a small way their enduring success serves to salve the
injury caused to our British pride by the wince-inducing, post-referendum antics
of the nation’s political establishment and, in the midst of the unseemly
scramble for short-term political advantage masquerading as The National
Interest, remind us that there is more to being British than the pain of embarrassment
at the greed of our establishment, outrage over the inequalities of our society
and guilt over our past colonial crimes: we can at least claim to have spawned
the visionary Sir Christopher Cockerell, the man who, with a hair drier and a
couple of empty tins, one placed inside the other, demonstrated the feasibility
of hovering and went on, undaunted by sceptics (and unhindered by restrictive
EU regulations) to invent a thrillingly new mode of transport.

Unfortunately the swelling
of pride was short-lived. I became overwhelmed with the events commemorating
the start of the Battle of the Somme, firstly at a laying of wreaths on the
classic, Lutyens-designed war memorial outside the Town Hall. The site is
currently surrounded by extensive roadworks and overlooked by a huge
building-under-construction but all work stopped for the ceremony and the men
in hi-viz vests on the scaffolding enjoyed a better view than we on the ground,
our necks craned for a glimpse of the proceedings. VIPs in civvies and top-brass
in uniforms took turns to step up and lay wreaths; a clergyman spoke of God and
heavenly rewards; a soldier extolled the virtues of duty and sacrifice; the
buglers sounded the Last Post and it was impossible not to be moved. But when
the band struck up and marched off to join a parade through the streets, I peeled
away to find a quieter contemplation.

There is a small
exhibition at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Visions of the Front: 1916-18, comprising
paintings, drawings and lithographs by official War Artists of the time. Many
of the images on display I had seen before but, viewed in the context of the
commemorations, they evoked the time, the place and the horror with a poignancy
I had not previously experienced. They also left me, incidentally, pondering
how they compare in efficacy with photographic equivalents. Are photos, created
in an instant, a more objective representation of events than hand-made images which
are worked up after the event with the artist’s conscious and considered
intervention?

I had earlier
encountered a piece commissioned by a living artist: Jeremy Deller’s We Are Here comprised thousands of
actors dressed in WW1 uniforms and presenting themselves, silently, among the
crowds outside shops and railway stations around the country. The project had
been deliberately unpublicised for maximum effect – a clever and effective
ploy. Outside Aldi I approached a lost and lonely-looking soldier, expecting to
become engaged in talk. But he silently handed me a card and looked resolutely
into the distance. The card simply said

Corporal John Davidson

17th Battalion

Highland Light Infantry

Died at the Somme on 1st July 1916

Aged 38 years

It was as if Corporal Davidson and his comrades had
emerged from their graves and memorials to take their places, temporarily, in
the fabric of everyday life and, by doing so, had brought us face to face with
the reality of their deaths. What could all those men have achieved if the war
had not robbed them of their lives – and us of a generation of potential
visionaries?